Question: Should the extended admin roles that are created appear in the drop down select list of user roles on user screens or does only one role “Extended Super Admin Manager” appear in the drop down user role select lists regardless of howmany extended super admin roles are created?

I ask because our host just made some changes to server configuration that resulted in the plugin now running without crashing; however, it takes a looooooooong time for the privileges selection screen to appear and I am unsure if it is acutually working properly because even after I configure an ‘extended Super Admin role and add a user to it, the names of the new extended super admin roles do not appear in the user role select drop down lists on various screens. Did I overlook info about what to expect to see there in some documentation somewhere?

And do I understand correctly that a user must first be set as a Super Admin in the network users area and then Extended Super Admin REMOVES privileges from them?

On the privileges selection screen, I notice there is a choice for “admin” and “super admin” but I am not clear on what deselecting those do compared to deselecting the individual privileges that seem releated to the overall dmin or super admin role. Does deselecting admin take away all admin privileges even if I do not check all the indivudal boxes? Same question about checking “super Admin.”

Thanks for responding and for clarifying my understanding of using this valuable plugin. Its exactly what we need for our multisite network.

a) No, the new roles should not appear in the dropdown of roles. The dropdown of roles are for site-specific roles, not for network roles.
b) Yes, you have to make someone a Super Admin first, then assign them to your new role by selecting them in the appropriate place on the Extended Super Admin options page.
c) Does the privileges screen take a long time to load every time, or just the first time? It should only be the first time, because the plugin is trying to gather information from the WordPress codex when you first load it. After that, it should be loading that information from cache, so it should be considerably quicker. If it’s not, I’ll have to investigate.
d) Unchecking “administrator” will stop the user from being able to see some plugin options (for plugins that still use old capabilities), but that’s probably about it. I’m not sure what the “super admin” capability would be. I don’t see that on any of my sites. However, I’d imagine it doesn’t remove much of anything, either.
e) If you’re only seeing a handful of capabilities listed on the privileges screen, you should go back to the Site Admin area for your root site and promote yourself to be an Administrator of that site (by default, if you are a Super Admin, you might not have a role at all on the individual site). The list of capabilities you see on the privileges screen is gathered from the list of your current capabilities.

I am the network Super Admin and I have a Super Admin role on every site.

a) I see the user role “Extended Super Admin Manager” appearing in the user role select drop downs. I just did not know if that single role description represented any/all roles created in Extended Super Admin.

Is it possible that user roles editor, or roles scoper or Advanced Access Manager populated the site specifc list with the role of “extended Super Admin Manager?”

b) So I set someone as Super Admin and then add them to limited privilege Extended Super Admin role and they no longer have all Super Admin privileges. Perfect!

c) It takes a loooooong time to load the privileges selection screen everytime, but it is also retrieving about 100 privileges. Many are for plugins we tested and removed, but their roles remain listed. (Any tips or tools for getting rid of those?)

d), e) got it. It would be helpful to have a better understanding of these choices in documentation if possible. Might prevent nusance questions going forward. 🙂

Based on your clarifications, it seems that it may be working fine now.
I’ll create some additional sub-Super Admin roles and try them out on a few sites asap.

a) I see the user role “Extended Super Admin Manager” appearing in the user role select drop downs. I just did not know if that single role description represented any/all roles created in Extended Super Admin.

I can confirm this. It’s even visible/selectable for normal Admins when creating a new user… Luckily, a normal user with that role does not have access to the ESA options. In fact, it seems to have no access to anything at all 😉

c) It takes a loooooong time to load the privileges selection screen everytime,

This seems the case on our setup as well, even without any extra capabities.

Regarding the “Extended Super Admin Manager” role, I’m going to have to find a way to hide that. It’s caused us problems in our setup, too (our admins are trying to create users with that role, then wondering why those new users have no privileges).

The next version will include an option to enable or disable the codex hints. Hopefully, if the codex hints are disabled, that will speed things up for you guys on the admin side.

I’ll probably have a new development version available in a few days if you guys don’t mind testing it. Thanks.

I think you are right that eliminating the codex hints will speed things up. We have over 200 plugins installed and available for site builders to pick from (I know, I know 🙂 ) and that is surely bogging things down when Extended Admin is retrieving all the codex hints.

That’s excellent news Curtiss. I do understand the dilemma here. On the one hand users asking for more documentation on capabilities, on the other hand users complaining about slow admin page load… Please do not take my confirmation of slow page load as a complaint. I’m happy to wait a few seconds, the fairly rare occasion that I need to change any extended super admins settings or create a new one.

In my view, it might even be a point of discussion whether removing the codex info would actually be an improvement as it has proven rather useful at times 😉